Legendary TV personality Wendy Williams reportedly aced a psychiatrist’s capacity assessment she undertook at a hospital on Monday, March 10, 2025, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, once again putting her highly publicized guardianship under scrutiny.
Post-Free Britney movement, the public has become sensitive to celebrity guardianships, raising important questions about ways the law can be used to take advantage of individuals who perhaps needed aid at one point in time but no longer do. In Williams’ case, concern was sparked when she was seen holding a note that read “Help!” against a 5th-floor window of the assisted living facility where she stays.
Wendy Williams getting taken away by an ambulance after throwing a "help me" note from her window.. SOMEBODY PELASE HELP FREE THIS WOMAN. pic.twitter.com/x5ImqvIfEW
— welp. (@YSLONIKA) March 10, 2025
TMZ, which has been working with Williams to produce the Tubi documentary Saving Wendy, broke the news that NYPD officers had attended the scene and determined that Williams should be transported to the hospital for assessment. According to TMZ, Williams scored 10 out of 10 on a psychiatric exam designed to evaluate a person’s decision-making capacity. The attending psychiatrist reportedly deemed her oriented after asking her 10 standardized questions.
The results of the assessment contradict the one produced by Williams’ guardian, who claims her condition since being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia has worsened, not improved. Williams disputes the diagnosis and effectively believes she is being held prisoner, as she explained to TMZ‘s documentary filmmakers via telephone since she was not permitted to leave the assisted living facility.
What is Williams’ condition now?
Williams said she lives an isolated life, mostly confined to her room. She claims she can’t leave the 5th floor without staff permission, and that she had only been outside twice in the 30 days to attend dentist appointments. She also explained that she receives few visits, nobody can make inbound calls to her, and that she has no internet access.
TMZ’s Harvey Levin says he has spent hours on the phone with Williams, and that she’s lucid and able to converse like “the old Wendy.” But Sabrina Morrissey, the elder-law attorney appointed as Williams’ guardian, claims the opposite.
Morrissey claimed the former talk show host was “permanently incapacitated” in Nov. 2024 in court documents obtained by Deadline. Williams was diagnosed with primary aggressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in May 2023 after being placed under legal guardianship and moved into a care facility in 2022. The court-ordered guardianship oversees her health as well as her finances.
Saving Wendy is the second documentary to be made about Willliams’ guardianship. Morrissey’s team attempted to block the previous one, Lifetime’s Where is Wendy Williams, before its 2024 release. A court filing reported by The Daily News saw Morrissey’s camp arguing that Lifetime “cruelly took advantage of Williams’ cognitive and physical decline by creating and publishing a documentary at a time when Williams was highly vulnerable and clearly incapable of consenting to be filmed.”
In addition to the wellness check performed by the NYPD and the hospital assessment, Adult Protective Services has launched an investigation into the guardianship. The result of the investigation could prove important for Williams’ wish for the guardianship to be reevaluated, which she claims needs to be done on account of an initial misdiagnosis.
Published: Mar 11, 2025 10:02 am